It's Always Something

In the fall of 2000 (loooong before I ever even dreamed about being a farm wife), it was downed corn, corn plants knocked over late in their life (thank goodness...because there were some kernels to harvest). I rode with my dad, since that was the only time we could see him that fall, in the cab of the combine. We drove roughly 2 mph, crawling through the field, picking up corn kernels with a contraption hooked on to the corn head of the combine that looked like a spider's legs. That was the year of my brother's wedding, where the guys leaped off the combine to come to the festivities, and then leaped back on, frantic in their pace.

In 2009, it was the rain, and rain, and rain. We probably should have considered an ark instead of whether or not we needed more dry storage that year.

Now, in a year that we have felt that we have dodged major bullets, the farmers are starting to get a little nervous. I have actually heard the sentence, "We could use a little shower," uttered a few times too many for me to know that now, we could really use a shower. After watching the radar this spring, and early this summer, and hoping beyond hope that the red and even pink blotches would not hit us or our family a little south of here. After seeing pictures of our friends' field (yeah, it's you, Andy...you made it again!), damaged by hail, although we wouldn't take something so extreme, the rain that accompanied that devastating hail would be welcome.

Our ground is in pretty good shape, thanks to some really good soakers this spring. However, the forecast is calling for extremely hot temperatures and no rain this week and even into the next.

Good for the pool. Bad for the farm.

It's always something.

Even last night, as Joe was wrapping up paperwork for his "other job," he mentioned that some of his clients were concerned about Japanese beetles. These are potentially devastating to a field.

Great.

So, this morning, as I'm writing, I am looking out at my grandpa's field. The one that looks really good. The one that's now taller than Joe, complete with tassels and little yellowish silks on the ears. The one that Joe used as a little agronomy lesson for me: if you notice that a corn field has ears and silks that are at a uniform height, that means that it has the potential to be good. There's some more to that explanation, but I forgot it. However, what I noticed was the semantics he used (because I am, in fact, a huge word nerd). What he said was the potential.

Always the optimist.

Today, even though my girls are psyched about breaking out the slip-n-slide, and we're looking forward to slathering on the sunscreen for the library's swim party, I will also be looking to the sky, hoping that these hot, hot temperatures will brew a pop up shower now and then during this week.

However, it can't have wind.

Or hail.

Or too much rain.

Because...it is always something.